


The Night Before Tomorrow

by Gwynne



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen, Written for a prompt from Lannamichaels on fic_promptly.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-02
Updated: 2010-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gwynne/pseuds/Gwynne





	The Night Before Tomorrow

The Night Before Tomorrow

 

Gregor has always hated the dark. He hates lying there alone in his silent room, surrounded by shadows, and shadowy thoughts. There are dozens of people working in the Residence, night and day, but he’s still alone, cold and silent.

It wasn’t always like this. He remembers the time when Aral and Aunt Cordelia lived with him. For seven years, from the Pretendership until he went to the Preparatory school, they were just down the corridor each night.

Gregor lets the memories flow back. First was the dark time when Aunt Cordelia took him into the mountains. He remembers the horses. There’d been fighting and scary men and his mother – his mother! – she’d tried to hold him but he hadn’t done his shoes up tightly enough and he’d lost her. But that hurt too much to think about, so he always thought of the horses. And then Aral and Aunt Cordelia came to live at the Residence, and after a while he stopped missing his mother quite so much. He had Drou and Aunt Cordelia, and somehow he knew they were always on his side. And Aral – he was a bit scary at first, but he always explained things and he was patient. Besides, everybody was a bit scared of Aral.

And there was Miles.

At first he didn’t really notice Miles, except as a distraction for Aunt Cordelia. Miles had so many things wrong with him there were always doctors and worry and hushed voices. Everyone had to worry about Miles, and take care of him. But after a while the worry was for other reasons, and taking care of Miles was a whole different challenge.

Somehow, around Miles, there was always excitement. There was his first word, spoken loudly and clearly during a formal audience with some of the Counts. All those serious, boring old men, in their house uniforms – all braid and stiff pride. Aral in his formal dress red-and-blues looking very remote. Aunt Cordelia in something silky and complicated, so different to her usual clothes. Miles was bundled up in a big lacy cover – partly to camouflage his tiny, twisted body and partly to protect it. It was dull and formal, he knew he’d be stuck there for hours when all he wanted was to play with Steggie. And then – “DAMMIT!” – loud and clear, the first word from baby Miles.

Cordelia stifled a giggle, Aral had one of his serious looks but Gregor had already learned to read the amusement behind that particular expression. Some of the Counts looked scandalised, but a few of them almost smiled. Suddenly the afternoon wasn’t so bad.

Then there was the time they’d all been on the dais at the parade ground, watching the troops march past. Line after line after line, all looking the same. Well, until Miles managed to slip away from several people who were supposed to be watching him and crawl under the dais. He couldn’t even walk, but somehow he wriggled under there and found the circuit controller. There was a blast of music, then a siren warning of terrorist attack, followed by a fire alarm, the Barrayaran anthem, and then a small giggle.

It was the most interesting trooping of the guard ever.

“We need more nursemaids,” said Aunt Cordelia.

“Or a choke collar for him, and a short leash.” That was Aral, pretending to be angry but his eyes glowed with amusement.

Gregor lay in the darkness as the bright memories swirled around him.

There was the time he’d been ploughing through yet another history lesson, taught by the most boring tutor he’d ever had, when suddenly the room was full of Impsec officers and he was whisked away to a secure room deep in the Residence. Three walls were lined with screens showing every inch of the exterior, and all the important interior rooms. Aunt Cordelia was escorted in, ruffled and halfway between upset and grimly amused. The screens were carefully scanned for signs of the terrorists who’d set off the alarms.

And… there was Miles, sitting on his toy horse, the one with wheels.

“Wheels were a mistake,” muttered Aral.

They all watched the screens in silence as Miles ordered Ivan to pull him along the path that ran around the building, the one that was hidden behind the garden plants, the one that only Impsec agents were allowed to use in their secret patrols. As they rattled along, Miles collected the sensors they passed, “Trophies of war,” he explained later. They’d been Vorthalia the Loyal, sneaking up on a battalion of Cetagandans.

It was one of many security alarms. Miles had a talent for wild, imaginative plans that blasted from the fantasy world to the real one with stunning speed.

There was Miles’s second birthday, when the celebrations were far more exciting than expected. And the Impsec agents stationed around the gardens found out that those tiny, frail hands could slide a plasma arc out of a holster faster than anyone imagined. And press the trigger. And melt a gazebo, flame several trees and take out part of the end wall of the East wing.

“Candles!” was Miles’s comment – he’d been trying to light the candles on his cake, which was now a smoking cinder.

The Residence guards all had new regulations about their sidearms from then on. And Sergeant Bothari wouldn’t let any armed guards anywhere near Miles. For their own protection.

There was the time Miles, Ivan and Elena disappeared. Two days of frantic searching finally found them, camped in the Residence cellars, hiding from the Cetagandans as they planned an attack to free Vorthalia from his captors. They’d prudently raided the kitchens first, and had spent two days eating their way through all manner of stolen delicacies. Miles had called it foraging for supplies.

“We found a new tunnel!” was Miles’s response to parental frustration.

And the time Miles had somehow managed to crawl from his nursery to the huge fountain in the Residence forecourt. The staff were busy preparing for another interminable Emperor’s Birthday celebration – the most boring birthday parties on Barrayar were the Emperor’s annual tribute evenings. In a spirit of helpfulness Miles decided to clean the rather mossy fountain. It was amazing how much foam was created by just one bottle of detergent – the forecourt, several of the receiving rooms and part of the main ballroom all vanished under a wall of bubbles. Best birthday ever.

“Perhaps we should microchip him, and have Security track him at all times,” Aral mused afterwards.

Sometimes Miles and Ivan had talked Gregor into helping with their constant raids on the attacking Cetagandan forces and various other insurgents. On several glorious afternoons they’d ranged through the attics, building barricades and fighting rebel armies. Gregor suspected that Aunt Cordelia somehow knew when things were getting too stressful – it was hard being a boy, a student, and an emperor all at the same time. Whenever it started to press down too much she’d somehow find a free day when Gregor, Miles, Ivan and Elena, and sometimes the Koudelka girls, could spend a few precious hours fighting imaginary armies, or rescuing a princess, or sailing through space. Miles always had the best ideas and a way of organising everyone else into carrying them out.

“I’m Vorthalia the Loyal, Gregor you can be Emperor Vlad, and Ivan – you can carry the supplies.” Ivan always grumbled, but he liked carrying the supplies – he always found a chance to sample the best bits.

And once Miles could walk he was even more unstoppable – it was as if he’d saved up all his energy for five years, then wanted to use it all at once.

Gregor winced at the memory of their adventure on the Residence roof, that part of the roof where the backup defences were installed. Impsec actually used it as a training exercise now.

“But we just wanted to see how far the guns were effective,” Miles was being reasonable, “We didn’t fire them, we just sighted them to get the range.”

Several people had pointed out, with increasing volume, that aiming the guns at Vorhutung Castle when the Council of Counts was in session could be misinterpreted, especially when the Castle sensors picked up the rangefinders aimed at them and set off every terrorist alert in the place.

“Well, it’s obviously a mistake to have dangerous unguarded weapons lying around.”

It was also pointed out that the weapons had been guarded, until someone decoyed the guards away. And that the weapons had been deactivated. Until Miles came along, anyway.

They’d both been punished – early to bed, with no supper, and a written apology from each explaining what they’d done wrong. Gregor was rather pleased to be in trouble, usually his errors were politely ignored. He’d taken great pains with his essay, examining the various disruptions to routine, the dangers to all including himself if any over-zealous guard had fired at them, the thoughtlessness they’d shown and the need to look at the results of his actions.

Miles had critiqued the rooftop security, and the Impsec response to the assumed threat.

And then there was the time they decided to go shopping for a birthday present for Aunt Cordelia – without their security details. And their banister-sliding challenge, from the top floor of the Residence all the way to the main entrance. Miles had broken three bones on that one, but he’d won.

Yes, that time when they all lived in the Residence together, just like a real family, was bright in his memory.

Even after he’d started at the Preparatory school there were good times together, especially the holidays at Vorkosigan Surleau. They’d sailed the lake, fishing for monsters. And rode those horses he remembered, up into the hills to camp under the stars and pretend they were hunting Cetagandans. To the horror of his Impsec detail they’d found an old guerrilla weapons cache and set off some truly glorious explosions before Impsec guards and armsmen – Vobarra and Vorkosigan – descended on them.

“We were just testing to see if they were safe,” Miles was surprised at the horror on their faces, “The Emperor wasn’t in any danger. He was with me.”

And Miles didn’t understand that they weren’t at all reassured.

But the best of all was that he wasn’t alone for a while. Miles would spin amazing fantasies. Gregor was older, and stronger, and the Emperor, but Miles was… a force of nature, sometimes. It was easier to just agree and let him carry you along, since you’d be doing it anyway, as soon as he started explaining how good his idea was.

The memories ran faster, slipping past like beads on a string. Wild plans and secret expeditions, sunlight and laughter. And teeth-grinding frustration, which Miles induced in everyone sooner or later. And friendship, and family, and love. Miles, his cousin, his friend, his foster-brother. Miles, the only one who saw Gregor as a playmate first, then as the dread emperor.

Without Miles his childhood would have been even colder, and quieter, and desperately lonely.

And tomorrow Gregor was going to walk into the Council of Counts and pronounce Miles guilty of high treason. He’d give orders for Miles to be hunted down and brought back to Barrayar in restraints, for execution.

And then he’d watch, day after cruel day, as his foster brother died slowly, agonisingly, by the order of the Emperor.

Tomorrow he will walk into the Council of Counts and sentence his brother to death.

Tomorrow.

And tonight the Emperor lies alone in the dark. Crying.


End file.
